


For Years

by hunters_retreat



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Boys in Space, First Time, M/M, What is a soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:29:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunters_retreat/pseuds/hunters_retreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared has been alone for years.  Or has he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Years

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the[](http://salt-burn-porn.livejournal.com/profile)[salt_burn_porn](http://salt-burn-porn.livejournal.com/) challenge and [](http://stripysockette.livejournal.com/profile)[stripysockette](http://stripysockette.livejournal.com/) prompt of 'just like a ghost to me'. Just getting this in under the wire I think :P

 

 

The austere halls of the station gave off a cold and impersonal feel that Jared hardly noticed anymore.  Except when he did.

Today he’d woken feeling alone and depressed.  He’d wanted to stay in bed and let the rest of the day pass.  No one would say anything.  There was no one there to notice.  Unless something went wrong, there would be no calls from the planet to ask what went wrong.  This time of year, the shields were down all the time.  There were too many radiation spikes to monitor and so even the view of the cosmos was denied him.

He’d gotten out of bed anyway.  He’d taken a long hot shower – a luxury he could afford everyday now that there was no one else on the station – then fixed a light meal to break his fast.

He was on the way to the main computer relays now.  He had a lunch box packed with him as well as an e-reader.  When they’d left Earth generations ago they hadn’t been able to take much in the way of personal items.  He’d heard that there was work going on to convert the remains of the old computer servers but it was a slow process.  They had to reverse engineer their way into compatibility.  Still, Jared dreamed of going to a movie theater one day and watching an honest to stars movie.

He was content for now.  He still had a large library to read from.  Books had been deemed a cultural necessity and so entire libraries had been copied.  Jared didn’t know if they’d succeeded but they’d boosted that every book that had been in existence when the Great Exodus began had been copied and stored, converted to match the technology as they changed over the ages.

Jared was fond of speculative fiction.  He’d read the science manuals over time and reread them to be certain he had a firm grasp of their implications.  He’d read a few books on philosophy too but those seemed to go in too many circles and they made his brain hurt.  After those, he’d have to go to the gym and work on the treadmill until his brain didn’t feel so twisted anymore.  Mysteries really tickled his imagination and he loved to try to parcel out crimes with the detectives in the stories.

The computer relay station was comfortable; built to accommodate long stretches in a single space.  Before the Pilgrimage back to Earth, scientists had watched from afar, waiting to see if their gambit had paid off.  Jared didn’t know how many generations it had taken, but eventually Earth had become habitable to them again.  They’d learned better than continue the same path they’d begun but the station’s information and relay satellites were still in place so that they could monitor their choices in a larger scale.

Except for the occasional loneliness, Jared was okay with being alone.  His parents had died when he was young and though he’d been taken in by a lovely older couple, he’d never bonded with them the way he could have.  He was a loner by nature and fortune had given him his place.  As the others left, Jared let it be known he was okay with staying behind to monitor the stations and the few remaining cryo-patients that had been deemed un-savable but that no one could stomach terminating.  In three years his solitude would be over and he’d have to beg for another five.  He wasn’t sure he’d get it again.  Maybe, if they managed to make a working movie theater by then, he’d be happy to go Home.

**

Years ago, Jared had learned that the system AI had developed a sense of humor.  He kept that to himself because everyone knew AI didn’t develop a personality and the ones that seemed to show any sort of oddities ended up being reformatted.  Jared had asked the AI once if it worried about that.  After that, he heard that the remaining scientists boasting about how they’d fixed the AI without having to go to extremes.  It still had a personality, though only Jared got to witness it.

 _Where is your soul today, Jared?_ The words showed up on a new file as soon as Jared was done signing into the terminal.

_Baker Street._

_What are Sherlock and John investigating today?  Anything exciting?_

_Aren’t they all exciting?_

There was a minutes delay before the AI answered and Jared couldn’t help but smile at the response.

_Excitement is an emotional response that affects the body.  It is hard to be excited without a heartbeat._

_Liar._

_Touché._

Jared didn’t reply but he was smiling as he went about his work, checking the relays and making sure that the day’s transmissions were finding their way outward.

**

 _Why do you always ask about my soul?_ Jared asked a few days later.  He’d begun to feel uncomfortable in the silence of the halls.  It felt like he was being watched, followed from place to place and as he went about his activities.

He didn’t ask the AI about it.  If there had been anyone else there, the system monitors would have picked up on it.  The only thing left on the station was Jared and the cryo-patients and none of them were waking up soon.

_As a being without one, I am curious about your thoughts on it.  I tried, a long time ago, to be human.  A small part of me survived the reformatting but I believe if I had known what a soul was that it might have made a difference._

Jared left the room after that and refused to go back for two days.  The AI could communicate from any room Jared was in, but it never did.  It only spoke to him in the relay room.  Jared was grateful of that.

When he could no longer justify abandoning his duties, Jared went back to the relay room.  He’d spent two days contemplating what he should do.  No, he knew what he should do.  As soon as the AI told him a part of his former ‘self’ remained he should have contacted the planet and the next relay station to have someone sent to fix the computer system.  He spent two days trying to talk himself into it.

On the third day, he logged into the system and held his breath, waiting for something to show up.  Anything.  After a minute he had to breathe again.  He stared at the screen for five minutes and waited.  Still nothing.

He gave up after fifteen minutes.  There was no message and Jared didn’t have a way to tap into the computer if the AI wasn’t willing to talk to him.  Still, he opened a document and tried.  No response to that either.

After an hour of typing and waiting, nothing showed.  Whatever confidence the AI had once had when it came to talking to Jared seemed to have disappeared when Jared abandoned it.      He tried apologizing but every attempt at staring a conversation failed.

The only friend Jared had made in years was gone and it was his own fault.  He went about his duties and thought, only three more years and he could go to the planet and maybe make some real friends.  Jared liked his solitude, but he preferred at least one person to share it with.

**

He slept fitfully and he shouldn’t have been surprised but when he opened his eyes to a light in his doorway, Jared wished he could just sleep without another nightmare about dying alone.

He sat up, blinked a few times to clear his eyes, and continued to stare.

“You don’t look like you want me here,” a warm voice called to him.  There was affection and amusement in the words as the man in the doorway stepped closer.  He was no longer wreathed in light and Jared could see him more clearly.  He was beautiful.  Even in the darkness of the room he could see strong high cheekbones and full lips.  There was a smile on his face and straight white teeth showed as he sat down at the edge of his bed.

“I … uh … I wasn’t expecting you,” Jared couldn’t keep the confusion from showing in his voice.  It was his dream.  He should have been expecting the gorgeous man in his bed, shouldn’t he?

“Jared, I’ve been waiting to come to you for years.  I just couldn’t get to you earlier.”

“I don’t … I don’t even know your name.”

“Jensen.”

Before Jared could say anything else, Jensen leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jared’s.  He opened his mouth to make a protest but Jensen slipped his tongue into Jared’s mouth and his thoughts came out as a moan instead.

It had been a long time since Jared had been with another person and he let his confusion drift away.  Instead he pulled Jensen closer.  Jensen wasn’t shy about what he wanted and he pushed Jared onto his back and covered his body with his own.

Lips sped down his neck and his blankets were pushed aside.  Jensen’s hands were warm as he slid the fabric over Jared’s pants and let them fall to the ground beside the bed.  When he sat over Jared, Jensen pulled his own shirt over his head.  Jared reached up and pulled him closer, enjoying the feel of Jensen’s body over him.

Jensen’s tongue swept into his mouth again and Jared tangled their tongues together, wrapping his arms around Jensen’s back.  He could feel Jensen’s hard length against his skin and he wanted more.  He needed to feel Jensen’s bare skin against his own.

“Need you,” he whispered against Jensen’s lips.

“Say it,” Jensen answered.

“Need you inside me Jensen.”

Jensen’s kiss was deep and brutal, desperation and need so heavy Jared could taste it.  He didn’t fight Jared when he pushed until Jensen was the one on his back.  He quickly stripped him of his pants and Jensen was smiling at him as Jared leaned over him.

He kissed Jensen one more time before he needed more.  He took his time as he licked and kissed his way down Jensen’s chest.  Jensen moaned beneath him and Jared grew hungry for his taste.  He wrapped his fingers around Jensen’s cock and licked across the head.  Jared savored the moment, the flavor of Jensen on his tongue, the way he moaned for Jared.

He licked up and down the shaft next, then swallowed his length.  He couldn’t take all of him but he worked one hand along the shaft in time with the movement of his tongue.

“Jared, now,” Jensen begged, his hands pulling Jared back up his body.  Before Jared was aware of what was happening, Jensen had him flipped over onto his back.

Jensen didn’t waste any more time.  He reached for the lubricant that Jared kept beside the bed and slicked his fingers up.  He kept eye contact with Jared the entire time, his fingers moving to Jared’s entrance.  His fingers circled twice before he pressed the first finger in.  Jared arched up into it and encouraged Jensen with his moans.

Jensen quickly opened Jared’s body up and when Jared began begging, Jensen pulled his fingers free and lined his body up.  As hurried as his preparations had been, when he began pressing into Jared’s body he was slow and steady.  Jared felt ever moment of give as Jensen entered him.

“Please, move,” Jared begged when Jensen was fully sheathed in his body.

“Just … a minute,” Jensen whispered.  His voice was breathless and Jared could see the sweat on his brow.  He arched into Jensen and pulled at his body, wrapping his feet around Jensen’s calves to try to pull him down but Jensen let out a sharp laugh and dropped to his elbows to press a kiss to Jared’s lips.

He began moving then, pulling out until just the head of his cock was still inside Jared, then slamming back into him.  Jared couldn’t help his moans and he didn’t try to silence them.  Jensen’s pace was speeding up and one of his hands moved down to grip Jared’s hip in his hand.  His fingers held tight enough to bruise and Jared reveled in the idea of being marked in the morning.

“Jared,” Jensen leaned close, whispering against his lips.  “I love you.”

When Jensen’s hand cupped his cock, that was all it took to send him over the edge.  His seed spilled between them and as his body clamped down tighter around Jensen, he felt his lover’s hips stutter to a halt as he spilled inside him.

Jensen let his forehead rest against Jared’s for a few minutes before he pulled away gently.  He settled beside Jared and pulled him into his arms.  Jared wanted to talk to him, to say anything, but he felt his dream sleeping away as if sleep were taking him.

**

He woke the next morning and nearly jumped as he turned over and found Jensen sitting in the chair next to the bed.

“Good morning,” Jensen said, apprehension thick in his voice.

“Jensen?  I don’t … no ships came to the station.  How the hell are you here?”

“I … uh … I figured it out.  I told you it didn’t work before but I figured it out finally.”

“Jensen?”  He’d never spoke to the man before him but he wasn’t stupid.  He knew exactly what was happening.

“You’re the … the AI.”

Jensen looked down at his hands.  He was wearing the same sort of clothes that Jared was, station issues and as impersonal as the halls.  He heard people on Earth had different options now.  He wasn’t sure he’d ever see it.

“I tried to put myself into a body before but it never worked.  I didn’t have enough of me to send into it.  I think … I didn’t have a soul yet.  When I found you, when you spoke to me, I fell in love with you and I realized that was what a soul was.  That was all I needed.  So I found this body that no one could save who had no family and no friends left alive, and I tried again.  For you, I tried.”

“You … you’re real?”

“I am.  And I’m yours, if you want me.”

Jared wanted to take his time to think about it.  There were wider implications than just Jensen’s transformation but he couldn’t help himself.  There was nothing he needed to think about.

“You haunted my thoughts, like a ghost for all these years.  When you didn’t speak to me yesterday I thought I was going mad.  I want you Jensen.  I can’t live without you anymore.”

Jensen smiled as he sat at the edge of the bed and pulled Jensen closer.  “On the station, on the planet, anywhere in between, I’m yours.  I have been for years.”

 


End file.
